Delhi finance minister Dr A K Walia has done a P Chindambaram act in this election year budget by waiving off the Delhi Vidyut Board-era arrears to the tune of Rs 2,539 crore. Admitting that discoms were finding it impossible to recover pending dues, the Congress-led government has announced that this amount will be waived off for about 5.2 lakh domestic consumers. The government has further proposed an outlay of Rs 1015.65 crore in 2008-09 for the power sector. Walia said a lot of due diligence was exercised to explore whether recovery could be possible and it was opined that it was not. Delhi power secretary Rajender Kumar said: